Heuristics as Antecedents of Post-Merger Integration Performance?

Researchers and practitioners alike hold activities in the post-merger integration (PMI) phase accountable for the lion’s share of M&A underperformance. A review of the existing literature suggests that studying the influences of organizational and managerial cognition on this organizational process that is central to strategy (Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2011) might offer a promising approach. Building on cognitive theory, we analyze the role of heuristics during the PMI phase of a big German top tier automotive supplier. Our contribution to the field of strategic management is twofold. In applying new theoretical and methodological perspectives to the phenomena of PMI, we aim to extend existing explanations for success factors of PMI. In researching heuristics, we seek to better understand individual and shared organizational cognition and subsequent behavior.